Safety as a DLC; Two 737 MAX Airliners That Crashed Did Not Have Optional Safety Equipment

[79wjd]

17 minutes ago, S w a t s o n said:

Yea, it's not up to the pilots to ensure their employer trains them correctly. In Canada, if you tried that you get laughed at. The employer provides the training, if they have not provided it, it's their fault full stop. They could have read the manual, maybe they even did. Or maybe the guys flying the plane don't come home after work and want to flip through a phone book of a plane manual of their own volition. I guarantee you most pilots did not go out of their way to do what you are saying.

And it takes a special kind of moron to fly a plane knowing that a problem exists and not taking the time to learn how to recover from that failure.

 

The above statement only applies to anyone flying a 737 Max after Lion air.

 

[ThePointblank]

4 hours ago, S w a t s o n said:

You're making an ass of you and.... well just you.

 

1. Thanks I knew this

2. Thanks I knew this

3. That's a cool story bro, innovate to create more accurate sensors. Nothing is perfect but you can improve, doesnt change anything. This applies to all planes

4. Would have helped, also who the fuck makes a warning light optional?

5.Those options are not meant to make techs lives easier they are meant to save lives when the fucking system fails.

6. Yes the manual does in fact contain information, thanks for the tip. (aka knew this)

7. Most pilots do know about the safety systems, but in this case they didnt because people didnt tell them.

 

Now for the pointless bits

 

1. True, and boeing and the airlines both misrepresented this to the pilots

2. I didnt make any comment about compensating but yes they did need to be told and trained, thats a failing on boeing and the airlines

3. They create the ability for a pilot to figure out that shit's fucked. That's the entire point. An AoA indicator should be pretty useful information that a pilot can easily digest, I dont see the problem here

 

I would not compare this to fucking tesla autopilot. Not only is it a disparate comparison it just isnt logical. Any software can have bugs? In the case a driver crashes because they didnt pay attention that's pretty much on them. In this case it's not the pilot's fault or problem.

The problem is that it wasn't just the pilots not aware about this feature; airlines were also not told about this, and none of the manuals indicated that this system was present on the 737 MAX:

 

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/u-s-pilots-flying-737-max-werent-told-about-new-automatic-systems-change-linked-to-lion-air-crash/

 

Quote

Pilots flying Boeing’s 737 MAX for American Airlines and Southwest Airlines were not informed during training about a key change to an automatic system that’s been linked to the fatal crash of a Lion Air jet last month, according to pilot representatives at both airlines.

 

Jon Weaks, president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, said Monday the airline and the pilots “were kept in the dark.”

 

“We do not like the fact that a new system was put on the aircraft and wasn’t disclosed to anyone or put in the manuals,” he said in an interview. What’s more, he noted, Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration have now warned “that the system may not be performing as it should.”

 

“Is there anything else on the MAX Boeing has not told the operators?” he added. “If there is, we need to be informed.”

 

He said his training on moving from the old 737 NG model cockpit to the new 737 MAX consisted of little more than a one-hour session on an iPad. The airline doesn’t have simulators specific to the MAX model.

 

Apart from that, the only MAX-specific training was practicing cross-wind landings, which are trickier in the MAX because the wingtips have large downward-pointing strakes that might touch the ground in hard cross-winds.

 

But the cockpit displays and systems seemed identical, he said.

 

“We assumed they were mostly cosmetic differences,” said Tajer. “Why we weren’t informed of this, I don’t know. Pilots are calling us and asking.”

 

With the revelation that the MAX has a shift in the flight-control system not present on the earlier 737 models, he said, APA safety experts are in “aggressive exploratory mode” to find out all the ramifications.

 

“We want to know everything about the airplane that we are accountable to fly safely,” Tajer said.

 

At the “Pilots of America” online chat forum, one American Airlines pilot posted the APA message and then added a personal reaction:

“We had NO idea that this MCAS even existed. It was not mentioned in our manuals anywhere (until today). Everyone on the 737 had to go through differences training for the MAX and it was never mentioned there either,” the anonymous pilot posted. “I’ve been flying the MAX-8 a couple times per month for almost a year now, and I’m sitting here thinking, what the hell else don’t I know about this thing?”

 

News that Boeing had not informed the airlines of the change was first reported Monday by Bloomberg News.

 

The fact that U.S. pilots were not informed about the change means that almost certainly the Lion Air pilots too were unaware.

 

Also, the simulator that's specific for the 737 MAX also doesn't replicate the failure mode that both the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes experienced with a malfunctioning trim control system.

 

Not that there were that many 737 MAX simulators out there; per CAE, the primary manufacturer of the 737 MAX simulator, only 4 had been delivered to airlines worldwide in December at the time of the Lion Air crash.

[D13H4RD]

Just to note.

 

Losing an AOA sensor does not mean an airframe is just going to fall out of the sky. 

 

From what I see, the main issue lies with how the system isn’t really well-designed when talking about fault-mitigation. Considering that Boeing has been in the game for over a century at this point.......yeah

[Salv8 (sam)]

now thats some day one dlc...

[wanderingfool2]

13 hours ago, straight_stewie said:

If it only used one of the sensors, we wouldn't be having this conversation. The fault is that it doesn't fail gracefully when the two sensors are not in agreement with each other... Actually, the whole problem could probably have been avoided if it used only one sensor or three or more sensors. This was a failure in the design of a fault tolerant system, in that they didn't actually succeed in building a fault tolerant system.

Yes, I agree it was a failure in not building a fault tolerant system.  Using data from just a single sensor could be the cause of this situation.  A fault in the sensor it is reading would cause it to trigger the system, without even verifying what the other sensors data is prior to triggering.  I think we are both on agreement though, systems need the proper safeguards in place to prevent a single point of failure (especially when the hardware is in place to prevent a single point of failure)

[JAKEBAB]

Wasn't this the case with the other crashes as well? Not surprised anymore.

[D13H4RD]

Apparently, an Airbus A321 in late 2014 also had a malfunctioning AOA sensor triggering rogue commands by the flight computer 

 

http://m.aviationweek.com/commercial-aviation/german-investigators-cast-wider-net-frozen-aoa-sensors-pamplona-dive-incident

 

Difference is that this was at 30,000 feet, and the crew were indeed able to recover by contacting ground technicians and reconfiguring the Airbus computer to alternate law #1, which disables the alpha protection. It also happened after the initial climb phase, versus the MAX crashes. 

 

Similar but also different. I think the real question here is whether crews who were transitioning from the 737NG to the MAX were properly briefed on the technical differences between the 2 when they went for certification. 

 

The lack of an AOA indicator may be an eye opener, but apparently, this has been done since the 737NG days, and whilst I would think those would aid in identifying the issue, I'm not entirely sure if it would have prevented the crash, especially if MCAS is still alien to many 737 crews. 

 

This seems to more be a case of a failure in communication and such. 

[Trik'Stari]

And people look at me funny when I refuse to fly.

 

I don't care what the statistics are, in the eventuality (assumption a crash is occurring) of a crash, a car crash is far more survivable than a plane crash. I've been in a head on collision (I was not at fault, other driver veered into my lane) and that's been my only accident in 14-15 years of fairly heavy driving.

 

I'd rather just drive. That way I can vape, listen to music as loud as I want, not die because some financial exec wanted to save an extra half % for the company and get his bonus, stop for a piss, get decent food.

 

You know, the little things.